Pablo Picasso's lifelong relationship with writers and the ways language affected his work is the focus of an exhibition coming to the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

"Picasso and the Allure of Language" includes 60 works created by Picasso between 1900 and 1969, four years before his death at age 91. The Nasher Museum is the only traveling venue for the exhibition, which will be on view at the museum on Duke's campus from Aug. 20 through Jan 3, 2010.

The exhibition focuses on Picasso's life after moving from his native Spain to the bohemian Montmartre section of Paris in 1904. There, he formed friendships with important French writers and poets, including Max Jacob, Pierre Reverdy and Guillaume Apollinaire. In 1905, Picasso met Gertrude Stein, the expatriate American writer who, guided in art collecting by her brother Leo, became the artist's principal patron in Paris until 1914. Works made by Picasso for the Steins are included in the exhibitition.

The exhibition also includes works by fellow artist Georges Braque and photographs, letters, manuscripts and book projects by a diverse group of artists and writers. The exhibition will be complemented by "Africa and Picasso," a small exhibition inspired by Picasso's own collection of African art.

"‘Picasso and the Allure of Language' focuses on Picasso's deep and interdisciplinary interest in writing and language, and reveals new insights about this famous, well-studied artist," said Kimerly Rorschach, the James H. and Mary D.B.T. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum. "We can learn a lot from the intellectual and artistic exchanges between Picasso and some of the greatest thinkers of his day."

The exhibition will be complemented by programs at the Nasher Museum, including a free family day event, poetry night, panel discussions, film series, teacher workshops and other programs. The Carolina Ballet will present a newly choreographed ballet, "Picasso," inspired by the exhibition.
The accompanying "Africa and Picasso" installation was inspired by Picasso's own collection of more than 100 African figures, masks and musical instruments. The exhibition includes African objects from the Nasher Museum's permanent collection that are similar in type and origin as those collected by Picasso, and examines Picasso's practice of collecting African art from artistic, social and political viewpoints. It will be on view from Aug. 20 through Jan. 10, 2010.

"Picasso and the Allure of Language" was organized by the Yale University Art Gallery, and curated by Susan Greenberg Fisher, the Horace W. Goldsmith Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Yale University Art Gallery, with support from the Nasher Museum. The exhibition is drawn from the collections of the Yale University Art Gallery and Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection in Dallas.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, co-published by the Yale University Art Gallery and Yale University Press ($40, paperback). It includes an introduction by curator Susan Greenberg Fisher; essays by Mary Ann Caws, distinguished professor of comparative literature, English and French at the Graduate School, City University of New York; and extended catalogue entries that present new scholarship on objects from the exhibition by Jennifer R. Gross, the Seymour H. Knox, Jr., Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Yale University Art Gallery; Patricia Leighten, professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University; and Irene Small, assistant professor of modern and contemporary art history at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

"Picasso and the Allure of Language" was made possible by an endowment created with a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional endowment support provided by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Ketcham Family Memorial Fund, George and Schatzie Lee Fund, Carol and Sol LeWitt Fund, Leah G. and Allan C. Rabinowitz, Yale College Class of 1954, Fund; and Edward Byron Smith, Jr., Family Fund.

At the Nasher Museum, major support for the exhibition is provided by Marilyn M. Arthur, the E. T. Rollins Jr. & Frances P. Rollins Foundation, David A. Lamond, Duke Medical Center, Duke University's Graduate Liberal Studies Program, Drs. Victor S. and Lenore B. Behar, Jaclyn, Nelson and Kelly Braddy T'99, Tom and Larry Hines and Isobel Craven Drill, Stefanie and Douglas Kahn, and Dr. Lee Albert and Ann D. Whitehurst. Additional support is provided by Drs. Anne Micheaux and Onye Akwari, Laura S. Ladd, Diane Evia-Lanevi and Ingemar Lanevi, Herman and Eunice Grossman, A. Courtney Shives, Jr., Olympia Stone and R.J. Sims Preston, Ruth Glesby Wagner, and Nancy Palmer Wardropper.

The official Hispanic media sponsor is Univision 40.

Nasher Museum exhibitions and programs are supported by the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, Mary D.B.T. Semans and the late James H. Semans, The Duke Endowment, the Nancy Hanks Endowment, the K. Brantley and Maxine E. Watson Endowment Fund, the James Hustead Semans Memorial Fund, the Marilyn M. Arthur Fund, the Victor and Lenore Behar Endowment Fund, the George W. and Viola Mitchell Fearnside Endowment Fund, the Sarah Schroth Fund, the Margaret Elizabeth Collett Fund, North Carolina Arts Council, Duke's Offices of the President and the Provost, and the Friends of the Nasher Museum of Art.

The Nasher Museum, at 2001 Campus Drive at Anderson Street on the Duke campus, is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday; and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. The museum is closed Mondays.Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and members of the Duke Alumni Association, $3 for non-Duke students with identification and free for children 15 and younger. Admission is free to all on Thursday nights. Admission is free to Duke students, faculty and staff with Duke Cards. Admission is also free to Nasher Museum members.

Additional information is available at www.nasher.duke.edu.